Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case in 1954 that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for Black and white students to be unconstitutional. This ruling effectively overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine established in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The lead plaintiff in the case was Oliver Brown, a Black man who sued the Topeka, Kansas school board on behalf of his daughter Linda Brown, who was denied admission to an all-white elementary school.

The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education marked a significant victory in the civil rights movement and was a turning point in the fight against racial segregation in schools and society. The case laid the foundation for desegregation efforts across the United States and inspired further legal challenges to segregation in other areas of public life. Brown v. Board of Education is considered one of the most important legal decisions in U.S. history in the struggle for racial equality.